continental seat selection

Hi.
If you visit Continental, and some other airlines internet sites and try to book a ticket you can select your own seat during the booking. Is this picture of available seats the correct "live" situation for the flight

Sorry it took me so long to respond but, unfortunately, the answer is no. I work in rez and can tell you that the load on a flight and the unassigned seats are not related to one another. Some people don't choose their seat ahead of time because they can't sit in their "preferred" seat or maybe they have a large group and want to wait until airport check in to try to sit together. Other times you can see the seat map online and note a lot of open seats but they may be blocked for tier level fliers or the airport is working on something for the plane and are blocking all seat assignments temporarily.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the "open" seats online is not a good way to choose a nonrev flight. The best way now (and will probably always be) is to call the nonrev line for those airlines who have one (Alaska's is 1-877-677-2566) or the regular number for those who don't, politely introduce yourself as a nonrev and ask about standby. At AS we are happy to give percentages but aren't supposed to give actual counts. I know everyone around me tries to be as helpful as possible because next time the person on the line could me one of us!

Donna is there a table or formula you/reservations use when turning numbers into percentages? Assuming that is, the information isn't one of those "if I told you..I have to kill you" deals http://www.nonrev.net/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

Keep'em flying

No specific table or anything, just common sense. If the coach cabin holds 128 and there are 25 seats left, well it is approx. 80% full. You get my drift. If you want to get good numbers, after they tell you the percentage just ask how many seats the coach cabin holds. I never give percentage of authorization and I really hate it when other airlines do. I mean, how the heck should I know what their auth is? Every airline oversells to a different degree. AS, for example, rarely oversells by more than 7 or 8 seats and QX almost never oversells at all. It is VERY rare for QX to oversell by more than 1 and only then if they've had a cancellation somewhere else. But I have seen airlines who oversell by 20 people and I know we do oversell quite a bit in the Mexico market (lots of no shows there).

OK, thanks Donna. Nice to know, but what if seat map say all seats occupied, will this mean that it is not any available seats??

Unfortunately, it probably does mean that Fleso. Still, you'll note that an assigned seat and a blocked seat are two different things. Make sure you use that count when you are seeing if all the seats are taken. There is always a legend next to the seat map which shows available seats, assigned seats and another option which will say either airport blocked seats or tier level seats. The last category may or may not be taken but you certainly can't get them online, which most people take to mean that they are full. Not always so.